The IPSA Research Committee on Structure and Organization of Government held its annual conference, hosted by the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, on January 5-7. The theme was: “what makes administrative agencies tick?” The conference benefited from a very large number of paper submissions, which allowed the organizers to be selective in ensuring high quality and coherent panels. Around forty participants presented their on-going work on interrelated themes such as agency autonomy, the changing dynamics of political control, agency competition and survival, bureaucratic expertise, bureaucratic reputation, blame avoidance and the consequences of management reforms. Delegates were fortunate to have two leading public administration scholars – Daniel Carpenter of Harvard University and Donald Moynihan of the University of Wisconsin-Madison – as keynote speakers. The event took place in a lovely venue, overlooking the walls of the old city of Jerusalem. Altogether, this conference was a unique intellectual and social event. Professors Sharon Giladand Moshe Maor were principal organizers of the conference.

Please look below and read carefully the information for panel and papers submissions for the SOG Research Committee 27 panels at the 23rd IPSA World Congress. The congress will be held at Montreal, Québec, Canada, 19-24 July 2014.

As usual, SOG (Structure and Organisation of Government) will present several panels. There is a ceiling of 10 panels per RC. However joint panels, co-organized with other research committees or sub-sections of national political science associations, are encouraged and will be allowed above the 10-panel limit.

The official final deadline for submitting RC complete panels (topics, abstract, paper givers) on the IPSA web site is October, 7 2013.

2014 Structure and Organization of Government (SOG) Conference - Call for Papers

What Makes Governmental Agencies Tick?

at The Federman School of Public Policy, The Department of Political Science, The Hebrew University of JerusalemMount Scopus, 91905, Jerusalem, Israel

5-7 January, 2014

This SOG Conference intends to shed light on several themes of considerable importance to the understanding of public agencies as both governmental institutions and administrative organizations. It intends to do so by placing government agencies’ decision making and behavior at the center of attention in order to facilitate a systematic thinking on how government agencies operate and how the administrative state functions. In particular, this conference encourages the development of theories and methods that shed light on the internal shaping of administrative organizations’ uneven responsiveness to – and their management of – their multiple external overseers, competitors, collaborators, clients, regulated entities and the public at large.

This Handbook brings together a collection of leading international authors to reflect on the influence of central contributions, or classics, that have shaped the development of the field of public policy and administration.

The Handbook reflects on a wide range of key contributions to the field, selected on the basis of their international and wider disciplinary impact. Focusing on classics that contributed significantly to the field over the second half of the 20th century, it offers insights into works that have explored aspects of the policy process, of particular features of bureaucracy, and of administrative and policy reforms.

Each classic is discussed by a leading international scholars. They offer unique insights into the ways in which individual classics have been received in scholarly debates and disciplines, how classics have shaped evolving research agendas, and how the individual classics continue to shape contemporary scholarly debates. In doing so, this volume offers a novel approach towards considering the various central contributions to the field.

The Handbook offers students of public policy and administration state-of-the-art insights into the enduring impact of key contributions to the field.